April 17, 2009 TDN Editorial
Opinion
A spate of dire economic reports has been emerging in recent weeks: plummeting industrial production, collapsing exports, shrinking capacity usage. All are worrisome. But none is as dire as the latest news that unemployment is at a record high, probably the highest in the history of the Republic.
At the start of the year, new figures reveal, unemployment stood at 15.5 percent. That means today, in the estimate of economist Seyfettin Gürsel, the real figure is probably above 17 percent.
That means roughly 4 million people in Turkey, a population nearing the size of Denmark, are idle. For young people between the ages of 15 to 25, the jobless rate is now officially 27.9 percent. To put this in international context, only one significant economy in the world today has a worse unemployment picture. This is South Africa, where the figure is 23.2 percent. In Gürsel’s words: “this is catastrophic.”
It may be too early to pronounce catastrophe. But the social implications of unemployment at these levels are all too familiar. Yes, as we have reported this week, some of this can be absorbed by people returning to complete education. As we report today, young men opting for conscription as officers rather than privates, with the attendant long terms and salaries, is also a rising trend that can help at the margins. But this is not a problem to be solved at the margins. Resort to extremist ideologies, whether based on religious or nationalist ideologies, is one danger. As Chief of General Staff İlker Başbuğ noted in his widely reported address this week, it is the young and the jobless who are most vulnerable and at risk of seeing hope in extremist violence.
Some of what should occur is obvious: Turkey needs to reach accord with the International Monetary Fund on an accord to underpin the country’s public finances. The country needs a real fiscal stimulus strategy, one aimed at the real economy. Reductions in certain consumer taxes are fine. Tax policies offer further room for creativity, even temporary aid to reduce the cost of creating and maintaining employment Ğ social insurance costs for example Ğ should be on the table. Interest rate policies that serve production are helpful, but worldwide, the limits to monetary policy are reaching the end of effectiveness. And in Turkey, nothing used so far adds up to real stimulus.
In the face of these growing unemployment figures, one important step would be to dust off the “Economic and Social Council” idea born of the 2001 crisis. Now moribund, this notion was a national advisory body drawing on government, labor union, education and civil society resources to advise on sensible, practical and doable steps. No stone of potential policy should be left unturned. The alternative is that foreseen by Gürsel: catastrophe.